Tag Archives: biodegradable

This collection of biodegradable Christmas decor was designed to combat the waste produced during the holidays!

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Winter With is a Christmas-themed collection of biodegradable home decor and accessories such as candles, side tables, and mugs.

While is Christmas is one of the most beloved holidays celebrated across the globe, it also creates a whole ton of waste. Whether it’s from indoor decorations, gift wrap, or tree ornaments, we collect a good amount of trash during the holiday season that only ends up in the landfill come the new year.

Designer: Jinwook Lee


While too much waste is never a good thing, no one wants to skimp out on the joy that comes with decorating the house with festive decorations for Christmas. Designer Jinwook Lee conceptualized a collection of biodegradable Christmas decorations and accessories called Winter With to scratch our holiday itch without hurting the environment.

Describing the collection’s origins, Jinwook explains, “There have been numerous incidents in 2021, but I think one of the most serious problems is the environmental problem…the plastic, which is thrown away too easily compared to huge plastic consumption, is causing animals to suffer and the environment to be destroyed at a faster rate than ever.”

In response, Jinwook designed Winter With, a Christmas-themed collection stocked with decor and accessories, from candle holders to side tables.

Inspired by the sight of falling snow, Jinwook’s Christmas-theme home collection is made entirely from recyclable and biodegradable plastics. Since most holiday items are used only for a short period of time before being discarded, Jinwook aimed to solve the issue of hard plastics ending up in landfills by the end of the year. Comprised of six different items, Jinwook’s Winter With collection will bring the holiday spirit to every home.

Santa is a match holder made from biodegradable plastic that appears as a micro-sized Santa hat with a Russian doll-inspired build. Initially appearing like a cute Christmas decoration, when users lift the hat of Santa, a pool of matches and striking surface is revealed. Winter With also features three different types of candles: Candle Ball, Leaf & Fruit, Red Shoe, and Woodbark.

Whereas the Candle Ball is a candle disguised as an ornament, Leaf & Fruit, Red Shoe, and Woodbark come with candle holders inspired by different winter scenes. Snowball is a trio of Christmas mugs that appear like stacked snowballs and Slope is a biodegradable plastic table built in the image of snow-covered slopes.

The Candle Ball appears like a traditional ornament but features a wick for candle lighting. 

Winter With features an array of different candles inspired by holidays scenes. 

The Tree accessory is a trio of Christmas mugs that stack together like snowballs.

Woodbark is made from copper, a type of metal that’s partly made up of recycled material.

The post This collection of biodegradable Christmas decor was designed to combat the waste produced during the holidays! first appeared on Yanko Design.

This biophilic air purifier uses 100% fully biodegradable filters to combat landfill waste!

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Olus is a compact, biophilic air purifier designed for those living in small city spaces and is stocked with 100% fully biodegradable filters to combat landfill waste.

In major cities, dealing with air pollution is a given. We check the AQI just like we check the weather. As soon as the AQI slips into the yellow and worse yet, red territories, that’s when our air purifiers start whirring. However, living in small city spaces makes dragging bulky air purifiers from the closet feel like a chore and when everyone’s using one, the waste produced from discarding used air filters becomes another problem. That’s why Louie Duncan created Olus, a compact, biophilic air purifier designed with 100% fully biodegradable air filters.

Breathing in polluted air is physically unhealthy and the mental strain that comes from dealing with its effects only amplifies the stress. Then, the waste produced as a result makes poor air quality that much more difficult to combat, garnering 6,000 tonnes of air filter waste every year, all of which ends up in landfills. Most air purifiers taking on a bulky build with a clinical aesthetic, so Duncan aimed to give Olus an inviting look with biophilic accents that warm up its personality to enhance the product-user relationship. A digital display panel also reveals the room’s AQI, temperature, and other data.

Taking to nature for inspiration, Olus features organic forms, patterns, and textures like a moss-covered exterior and abstract trims that resemble flower petals. The filter, fan, and motor encased inside Olus’s body operate the product’s purification method in a similar fashion to most air purifiers, except Olus only works with 100% fully biodegradable filters.

The two-stage air filtration process purifies the air in any room, with the interior fan drawing in air to push through a layer of dried moss that removes large pollutants before passing through a high-efficiency particulate air filter that removes 90% of fine particulate matter. The plant-based biodegradable air filters are made from polylactic acid, a derivative of corn plants, and can be sent to Olus following use where they’ll be composted.

Designer: Louie Duncan x Christian P Kerrigan Architecture

An interior look reveals that even the encased fan resembles flower petals.

The fan, filtration system, and motor are stacked inside of Olus. 

Dried moss coats the exterior of Olus with a preliminary filtration system. 

Users can easily replace the air filters by dissembling Olus into three parts. 

Duncan created Olus to have an air purifier on the market that produces zero waste while cleaning the air we breathe.

These sustainable Mushroom lamps are actually grown into their funnel shapes, instead of being mass produced

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With its oddly rustic design aesthetic, Sebastian Cox’s Mycelium pendant lamps aren’t made… they’re grown.

Mycelium, or the vegetative part of a mushroom, has found itself in the limelight for being a cheap, sustainable, and vegan alternative to suede and leather. If treated correctly, it looks and feels just like leather, offering a cruelty-free and biodegradable alternative that doesn’t have as much of a carbon footprint either. Teaming up with researcher Ninela Ivanova, British designer Sebastian Cox’s “Mycelium + Timber” examines the viability of mycelium as a potential material in commercial furniture design. The mycelium fibers are bound to scrap strips of willow wood, which provides the base and fodder for the fungus to grow. The result is the absolute antithesis of mass production. Designed in part by nature, each lamp is unique, has its own aesthetic, and is beautiful in its imperfections.

The lamps take anywhere between 4-12 weeks to ‘grow’. The scrap willow wood is first sourced from Cox’s own woodland, and cut into fine strips before being woven into shape and placed inside a mold. The mold is then filled with a fungus called fomes fomentarius, which was cultivated using more scrap strips of wood. Inside the mold, the mycelium and wood fuse together, creating a unique type of composite material. “In our workshop, we don’t use composite wood materials because I’ve never been quite satisfied with the binding agent holding the wood together,” Cox said in an interview with Dezeen. “As a result, I’ve always had a kind of fantasy interest in ‘reinventing’ a type of MDF and finding new ways to bind wood fibers into either sheets or mounded forms, ideally without glue.” The resulting lamp is removed from the mold when it’s fully grown and is supplied with 2.5m of oatmeal round fabric braided cable. The entire Mycelium lamp is sustainably produced and entirely compostable.

“It’s not just about the fungus, it’s about the marriage of the two materials,” adds Ninela Ivanova, a researcher who collaborated with Cox over this project. “These two materials have a natural relationship in the woodland, so let’s see how we can exploit that.” The duo plan to continue their collaboration and are working on releasing a full collection of mycelium and wood composite products in the near future.

Designer: Sebastian Cox with Ninela Ivanova

This biodegradable razor let’s lead a ‘cleaner’ & more sustainable lifestyle!

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Disposable razors are made of plastic and contribute heavily to waste and pollution. In fact, as per the report Award Catalogue 2020 of BEYOND PLASTIC, about 5,000 billion disposable razors are used per year globally – can you imagine that many razors in front of you for a second? That is an island-worth of waste and we are constantly looking for designs that remake sustainable versions of daily objects so that we are a step closer to solving this problem. Oquari is a biodegradable razor with comes with interchangeable heads that aim to provide a sustainable alternative that can help reduce the burden on the environment.

The razor is made with PBS Bionelle as well as stainless steel blades as part of a regenerative approach and it degrades in aquatic environments. Its design is specifically geared at reducing manufacturing processes and facilitate the separation of its elements at the end of its life so that it becomes an accessible, attractive, and economical product without being recognized as “disposable” which the team refers to as  ‘monstrous hybrid’ – a term coined by Michael Braungart and William McDonough for a product, component, or material that combines both technical and organic nutrients in a way that cannot be easily separated, thereby rendering it unable to be recycled or reused be either system. Most monstrous hybrids can only be thrown out and contribute to the waste stream and cannot be reused and therefore it is important to not view Oquari as a ‘disposable’ razor but rather as a sustainable alternative to the disposable razors.

“This is why we wanted to focus on a product that most people use while creating a dramatic environmental impact on our planet. Disposable razors, this kind of product has specifically a combination of plastics and elastomers. Which is rarely restore or recycled because of how difficult and expensive is. As part of our brief, we establish sustainable objectives that follow 7 of the 11 Rs of the R-Ladder: refuse the combination of monstrous hybrids, redesign better detachable pieces, rethink the concept of a disposable razor, reduce the use of plastic, reuse the razor for a long time, remanufacture materials for its use in other industries and recycle the package when disposed,” says the team,

Oquari creates a positive social-environmental impact because of the reusable handle that spreads awareness about the plastic waste problem. It encourages you to apply waste recollection strategies while generating more active learning and participation. Fairtrade is also ensured for users from socioeconomic sectors C and D because Oquari is made to be affordable. In addition, the constant consumption of blades ensures fixed income to the company. “Because our handle is reusable, raw material production and manufacturing costs are reduced. Likewise, waste decreases and benefits other industries by recycling discarded blades,” the trio elaborates. A sustainable lifestyle shouldn’t e a status symbol but rather an accessible choice so we can create a larger impact much faster.

Designer: Karla Valencia, Guillermo Miranda, and Erik Rodríguez

These reusable totes made from fruit skins is a green alternative to paper bags!

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Totes are a prerequisite for anyone looking to reduce their carbon footprint. Depending on the materials used to make the tote, it generally takes more resources to make them than single-use paper or plastic bags, but totes can be used and reused plenty of times. Using totes instead of single-use shopping bags can help reduce your carbon footprint even further if they’re made of sustainable materials. To offer a sustainable alternative, designers Johanna Hehemeyer-Cürten and Lobke Beckfeld made Sonne155, a reusable tote and sustainable alternative to the paper bag.

Sonnet155 is entirely made from biodegradable materials to ensure that each bag can break down into water or soil. Hehemeyer-Cürten and Beckfeld constructed the tote bags from the composite of two raw materials: cellulosic production waste from the textile industry and pectin, which partially mimics the gelling effects of gelatin. Cellulosic production waste comes from cellulose, the structural cell wall found in plants, while pectin is a plant-based polysaccharide derived from the skin of fruits. When used together to build Sonnet155, the locally sourced materials form a sustainable, gelatin-like tissue that can be fully integrated back into their natural, biological life cycle following the tote bag’s use. The tough material almost appears elastic, but looks and feels like leather.

By creating Sonnet155, Hehemeyer-Cürten and Beckfeld hope to make a sustainable alternative to single-use paper bags that feels more “[like] a treat rather than a burden,” as the designers put it. By following a minimalist design scheme, Sonnet155 is enhanced by its own natural, translucent hide that dissolves over time with consistent use. Coming in a wide range of colors that echo the peak months of summer, Sonnet155 is an upgrade to the canvas tote or single-use paper bag.

Designers: Johanna Hehemeyer-Cürten and Lobke Beckfeld

The materials used to make Sonnet155 totes are derived from cellulose waste and pectin, or fruit skin.

Sonnet155 is constructed from locally sourced, biodegradable materials to ensure a natural, biological life cycle.

Pectin mimics the elasticity of gelatin for a tough and durable completed structure.

With a minimalist design, Sonnet155 is enhanced by its own unique gradient pattern derived from natural pigments.

The leather-like building material found in pectin gives Sonnetq55 a loose, yet structured frame.

Once Sonnet155 totes reach the end of their use, they dissolve in either soil and water and continue their biological life cycle.

Totes are great accessories for city living or even weekly grocery store trips.

This biodegradable prescription pill bottle is an open-source design made from paper & its child-proof!

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Prescription medications are only packaged in stores in plastic containers and about 90% of them are not recycled, according to Tikkun Olam Makers, an Israel-based collective, that is constantly working to solve social and environmental problems with innovation. To battle plastic waste generated from the pharmaceutical industries they’ve created the Prescription Paper Pill Bottle and yes, it is child-safe!

Each year 4-5 billion bottles made of polypropylene plastic are made for prescription medication and then end up as non-biodegradable waste which means it can’t be naturally broken down and adds to the pollution levels. Usually, these pill bottles are small and end up in landfills or water dumps creating microparticles and toxic waste that is dangerous for the environment. Tikkun Olam Makers designed a paper pill bottle that’s 100% compostable, biodegradable, meets FDA regulations for water, light, and child resistance! When the bottle is empty, it can be composted to add more value to the soil without leaving behind any harmful waste.

“The Prescription Paper Pill Bottle, a first of its kind, is 100% compostable and biodegradable. Its open-source design adheres to FDA regulations for durability, light, water, and child resistance. It’s available to any pharmacy for filling prescription tablets and capsules. Once used then emptied, the paper bottle can be tossed into any compostable bin with its Rx label to decompose and be reused as fertilizer to safely replenish the soil in fields, gardens, and landscapes,” says the team. Tikkun Olam Makers made it an open-source design which means anyone anywhere in the world can use their method and make their own paper pill bottles by downloading the .stl file that contains the attendant images and assembly instructions.

Designer: Tikkun Olam Makers

These biodegradable face masks made from rice paper can be planted, helping you and the planet breathe freely!

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One sight we’ve all gotten used to since around this time last year is the littered surgical mask. Since the 2020 pandemic started, we’ve seen them crumpled on the side of the street, tangled up in bushes, buried in garbage piles, caught on tree branches– they’re everywhere. One study even shows that with each minute of the day, three million masks are thrown away. Since we’ve already seen some of the devastating effects of the global climate crisis, the need to redesign face masks that don’t contribute to the world’s microplastic pollution levels cannot be overstated.

Marianne de Groot-Pons, a graphic designer, based in the Netherlands, started Marie Bee Bloom, a biodegradable face mask company, to give back to the earth after noticing all of the blue disposable face masks littered in the street corners and leaf piles. Marie Bee Bloom face masks are made from rice paper in a Dutch sheltered workshop and are filled with a mix of Dutch meadow flower seeds. Since the masks from Marie Bee Bloom are biodegradable, they can be buried in the ground once they’ve been used, then the flower seeds encased inside each mask will have their chance to sprout and bloom. De Groot-Pons’s hope in designing Marie Bee Bloom masks is that they’ll grow into plant life and flowers to help cultivate the earth and nourish the bees that call it home.

Everything about the mask is biodegradable and sustainably constructed too– from the stamped logo to the glue that holds it all together. The woolen cords on Marie Bee Bloom masks are handspun from pure sheep wool, which can be tightened or loosened around the ear with the connected adjusting piece punched out of repurposed vegetable egg cartons. The glue that holds the cord to the mask is made from potato starch. De Groot-Pons says that Marie Bee Bloom masks have not been tested for protection factors. However, they are just as safe to use as homemade fabric face masks. Besides, aren’t we all wearing two face masks nowadays anyway? Wearing a Marie Bee Bloom face mask is an easy way to help yourself, the earth, and the bees.

Designer: Pons Ontwerp

Click Here to Buy Now!

Marianne de Groot-Pons created Marie Bee Bloom after seeing all of the littered blue face masks outside.

Made entirely from biodegradable material, even the cords are handspun from sheep wool.

The mask’s adjusting cord-piece is shaped from vegetable egg cartons.

Currently, Marie Bee Bloom ships to the Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany, but aims to ship worldwide soon.

Once you’ve used your mask and you’re ready to dispose of it, simply bury it in the ground and tend to it like you would other planted seeds. Then, watch it grow and wait for the bees.

The mask is made from rice paper and the cord is handspun from sheep wool, which is held to the mask with glue made from potato starch.

Wear the mask, bury the mask, sprout the seeds, watch the bees, and repeat.

The designer Marianne de Groot-Pons wearing a Marie Bee Bloom mask.

World’s first paper disposable razor unveiled in Japan

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This gives a completely new meaning to the word ‘papercut’! Say hello to the Paper Razor, a sustainable alternative to the disposable plastic razor. The Paper Razor, as its name suggests, comes with an all-paper body and sports a metal blade-head on top. Designed to be flat-packed, the single-use razor comes completely unfolded and can easily be put together in a matter of seconds by merely folding in the sides and the top to create a rigid, ergonomic razor with a grippy handle. Its origami-inspired design gives it as much strength and maneuverability as a plastic razor, while minimizing the use of plastic by as much as 98%. The result? A razor that can be easily flat-packed and shipped, used, and then disposed of… safely, of course.

You’re obviously wondering, how would a paper razor fare under exposure to water? Well, the fine folks at the Japan-based Kai Group fashioned the Paper Razor out of a relatively water-resistant grade of paper – keeping durable milk cartons and cardboard paper-spoons in mind. The handle can withstand water temperatures of up to 104°F (40°C), allowing you to shave with lukewarm water, and the metal head even features a notched channel on top that makes it easy to rinse shaved hair off the blade every few strokes. Designed ideally for travelers, the single-use Paper Razor offers a much more ecologically-conscious alternative to those disposable all-plastic razors. The overall razor weighs a mere 4 grams, comes in a flat-pack that’s no more than 5mm thick, and is available across 5 different colors – ocean blue, botanical red, jade green, sunny yellow, and sand beige.

Designer: Kai Group

This sustainable amenity kit produces clean energy & reduces plastic waste for hotels when composted

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All industries are making an effort to pivot and use more sustainable designs in an effort to slow down the climate crisis. We are seeing a boom in material experimentation and exploration, especially to make products that are biodegradable because that encourages a circular economy that works for the planet and the user. Single-use plastic is one of the biggest non-biodegradable contributors to ocean pollution. My biggest pet-peeve is when hotels have each item in their toiletries kit wrapped in plastic – it is so unnecessary and given the turnover of these items, it creates a tonne of waste. The Green Box is an innovative solution that aligns hotel stays with your sustainable lifestyle choices!

It is an amenity kit designed to help hotels to transition to a circular economy and avoid the waste generated by tens-of-millions of amenity kits are thrown away by hotel chains – we use them once but they last forever on our planet. Green box is made from compostable plastic which will let hotels industrially compost and organically recycle the items in a controlled environment. The design goes beyond providing functional value and also aims to educate guests about the material and its impact to encourage better choices even after the vacation ends. Each box comes with a disposable bin for the room to familiarize guests with the new kind of waste-stream. The guests will sort materials as compostable and non-compostable by simply following the color grading – green for compostable and white for general waste. Then they will put the green compostable items in the green part of the box and the white parts (contaminated with bacterias to be composted) will be disposed of with the general waste.

Once separated, the green items along with the rest of the organic waste from the hotel restaurant will be composted on an industrial facility. After 10 weeks of the methanization process, we will be left with soil and bio-gas which can be used to generate power. In fact, the Green Box might produce enough energy to power a standard LED light bulb for over 27 hours. The remaining organic matter left could be used as a soil fertilizer. The color system is easy to follow and by doing it themselves, the guests can see how much waste is being generated. This creates a beautiful circular design and business model for hotels to implement using bioplastics.

Designer: OnMateria

Coca-Cola, the world’s largest plastic polluter, is testing out the viability of paper bottles

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It seems like the title of the world’s largest plastic polluter (for 4 years in a row) is finally beginning to get on the nerves of the executives at Coca-Cola. After making a statement only last year that they don’t intend on breaking free from plastic, the company’s slowly begun re-evaluating its supply chain and choice of materials.

Thanks to a partnership with Danish company Paboco (Paper Bottle Company), Coca-Cola has now unveiled its first ‘paper bottle’. Available for a limited online trial in Hungary, Coca-Cola is planning a run of 2,000 bottles of the plant-based beverage AdeZ. It’s barely anything to begin with, but it is a start… and it gives Paboco, the company behind the bottle’s design, a much-needed boost.

Paboco’s paper bottle comes with an inner bio-polymer lining to provide a waterproof barrier (so that the paper doesn’t get soggy). The outer layer is made from a Nordic wood-pulp-based paper, and provides the perfect substrate for printing on, eliminating the need for a label. The bottle itself can be molded quite like plastic bottles are, paving the way for the use of forms, textures, and patterns to help the product stand-out… and the necks of the bottle can be threaded too, allowing for the use of a paper cap (with the option of the crimped metal caps too). While the bottle is biodegradable, Coca-Cola hopes to develop a design and supply chain that allows bottles to be recycled just like paper. “Our vision is to create a paper bottle that can be recycled like any other type of paper, and this prototype is the first step on the way to achieving this,” said Stijn Franssen, EMEA R&D Packaging Innovation Manager at Coca-Cola.

Coca-Cola’s limited run should be met with a bit of skepticism (after all, 2000 bottles isn’t enough, is it?) but the challenges faced by the company are understandable. Bottles can easily get crushed or damaged when transported in large volumes, a complication that exponentially increases with CO2-filled pressurized beverage containers. AdeZ, however, seems to be the perfect candidate for this trial run, given that it’s a thick, dairy-free smoothie that contains seeds, fruit juices, and vitamins. If successful, Coca-Cola may look to gradually expand on this approach, helping it achieve the company’s “World Without Waste” sustainable packaging goal of substantially reducing its waste footprint and developing solutions for easily recycling its bottles and cans, and shifting to using only 100% recyclable packaging materials by the year 2030.

Designers: Paboco & Coca-Cola

Images via Coca Cola and Paboco